Nowadays
by Dear Aunt Elladora
Summary: - "They are sweet sixteen now, but the air between them has grown far more sour than before." A piece primarily about Ron and Hermione in sixth year, but Luna, Neville, Harry, and Ginny make appearance.


_I've had you so many times before_

_But somehow, I want more_

_Look for the girl with the broken smile._

_Somehow goodbye means nothing at all_

_Come back to catch her everytime she falls_

**- Maroon 5, She Will be Loved**

Sometimes the sky gets so cloudy, Ginny wonders if the sun will shine again. She tells Luna, who comes up with a batty comment about the day the sun was purple over some city, but in a very Ginny-like fashion, she tunes Luna out. She tells Hermione, who talks in science-speak about the density of the cloud cover. Then she tells Ron, who smiles, and tells her the sun always comes back.

Because there's a difference in other people and in Ron, he's got a hidden optimism that shines through everything. Only he can't seem to buck up enough self confidence in himself to be optimistic about his future, or about his life.

"You're my hero," Hermione breathes when she's half asleep, her hair hanging over his knees in a quiet compartment. Harry had fallen to sleep an hour earlier, and Hermione had settled her head in his lap for a nap. He wonders if she's talking about him, which she is, and then sleep settles over him.

Ginny bursts into the compartment, looking for the trio, instead she finds Hermione and Ron fast asleep, clinging to one another. Harry's eyes bug out like a deer in the headlights, then puts a hand to her mouth and drags her away; they go sit with Luna and Neville. Because silence between Ron and Hermione is a good thing, nowadays.

For the two have become sweet sixteens, but the air between them was more sour than ever before. Ginny told Harry it was a rise is sexual tension, and if it had been a year or two before, he would have protested. Now he just nodded, but it seemed Harry was doing alot more nodding nowadays.

"You have to stop," she said one day, slowly, and he dropped his mug of tea with suprise.

"What do you mean?" he questioned, leaning to clean it but with a flick of her wand, the mess was gone.

"You keep catching me."

"It's a keeper's job to catch, Hermione."

Because he knows what she's talking about when she doesn't say the flat words. She learns that he is a strong force in her life she can't push away. And so maybe, she thinks to herself, their fights them testing one another to see how long they stick around. But they fight, and fight, and fight and neither budge from one another's side. So the test-theory is prooved wrong, but she won't let herself rationalize beyond that point.

And one day, they kiss. But they've kissed before, good luck in a quidditch match or a N.E.W.T, a quick goodnight for reassurance in Grimmauld Place. Because she's found out that twenty-year old Viktor Krum is getting married to a girl from his homeland, and though she'd never have admitted it, she wants a wedding. And so he kisses her for reassurance, a quick peck, then prepares to stand from her bed and go to his own room. Until she reaches out and stops him, and kisses him again.

She always means everything she says and does, and she meant those pecks on the cheek as a show of their friendship, as a comfort from her to him. She just doesn't kiss Harry as much because Harry doesn't need those type shows of comfort, and Harry doesn't need her to be there for him because he's spent a deal of time being his only comfort and is fine with that. So she's there when Harry needs her with a hug, but that happens less often.

So she means this second kiss, but not in a comfortable way. It's a hard kiss on the mouth that lasts longer than a peck, and the emotion isn't comfort so much as a need for him to fill. And he fits this bill of showing her that she's worthy so well. But there's something deeper, which you can tell by the way he kisses her back. It's a passion, they know but don't speak, a lingering desire that filled them for so long it was a matter of time before it bubbled over.

At this time, during their moment upstairs, Ginny is consoling Harry the same way she has been all summer, with her kisses. Luna is strolling the halls with her vacant expression intact, but Neville Longbottom has his hand gripped over hers. Things are changing fast nowadays.

* * *

**Author's note: **gooooood ship. Claps. And I don't ship Harry/Ginny, but it is far more cannon in this. And Neville and Luna! Squee! Nice, light, romantic piece inspired by the Kiss debate on FicAlley and the song She Will Be Loved. Though the song is much more melancholy. Um, I was talking to Tyler while I wrote this so that prolly inspired parts of it, the parts where I talk about Ronniekins. ::shrugs:: I liked writing this, it seemed all out-of-place. Which is fun. 

**_Review, please?_**


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